First Prosecution Under Anti-Chinese Law for Forged Certificate

Wong Ah Linen, one of the Chinamen arrested by local customs officers June 17 and ordered deported to China a few days later, was yesterday remanded to jail by United States Commissioner C. D. Emery, to await the action of the grand jury on a charge of uttering a forged and fraudulent certificate. This is the first prosecution in the United States under section 8 of the anti-Chinese law, which provides a fine of not over $1,000 or not over five years' imprisonment for substituting one name for another in a certificate, personating the holder or uttering a forged or fraudulent certificate. It is under this act that the order for deporting the celestial was suspended, and he was brought up to answer for the new offense. The other Chinaman arrested in company with Wong Ah Linen will come up for hearing today before Commissioner Emery and will probably likewise be remanded to await the action of the grand jury, as the evidence in the two cases is identical in every respect.

This is a new departure in the treatment of Chinamen found to be illegally in this country, and it is done partly to correct any abuse of the deportation laws which, it is said, has repeatedly been committed. A Chinaman in British Columbia, for instance, who wishes to return to China, buys a cheap fraudulent certificate and manages to get admitted into this country. In case he is caught while here, he is sent back to China at no cost to himself, thus saving his steamer fare at the government's expense. If, however, he is liable to be sent to the United States penitentiary for several years or fined $1,000, he will think twice before running such risks. If an example is made of the two cases now on hand, it will probably spoil the market for some time to come for fraudulent certificates, many of which are manufactured in San Francisco, while some are said to be produced on the Sound. They are sold to Chinamen in British Columbia for about $50 each. In many cases they are guaranteed to be absolutely perfect in every detail and as good as an original, but the Chinaman usually finds, when too late, that a forged certificate is very easily detected. As the certificates are all signed by a customs or internal revenue officer, the signatures have to be forged and the photograph faked, with full description of the Chinaman and the whole make-up, rendering a forgery usually very clumsy and easily detected.

The two Chinamen will have to lie in jail until the November term of the United States grand jury, as no bail can be accepted. They might be able to give bail on the charge of uttering forged certificates, but they are both under sentence of deportation, which is only suspended until they are through with the former charges, and in the latter case the law provides that no bail can be accepted.